5 Things You Can Make with Leftover Condiments

By
Nicole Cherie Jones

Make: Salad Dressing

One of the easiest ways to use up exotic, I-used-it-once ingredients like black vinegar, hot honey, or plum or duck sauce, is building a vinaigrette around them. When starting with an acid, add oil and seasoning (sweetener, salt, pepper, etc.) to taste. In the case of sweet ingredients like honey or plum sauce, add oil and vinegar or fresh citrus juice (play with what you have on hand — lemons, limes, oranges or grapefruit will work). Use your concoctions to elevate ordinary lettuce-based salads, or the pasta variety. When you have only a few tablespoons left in the bottle, pour the other ingredients right in and shake to combine.

Make: Marinade

Oil-based salad dressings (think vinaigrettes) can be dumped into a plastic bag to tenderize and flavor anything from chicken and pork to steak and lamb before it hits the grill or saute pan. If you don’t have enough liquid to coat all the meat, simply add a little more oil, some salt and pepper, and even a squeeze of lemon or lime to stretch the volume. If you happen to have leftover yogurt-based sauce or dressing, it makes a wonderful marinade for Greek-inspired lamb or chicken (the yogurt helps break down the meat so it cooks up ultra-tender).

Make: Frittata or Omelet

Eggs are very forgiving, flavorwise. They’re pretty much a blank canvas that you can color however you like. Salty condiments like olives, capers, tapenades and roasted peppers are all perfect ways to perk up a frittata made with your favorite veggies (stir them right into the eggs). Bonus points: Finish with a topping of light, creamy cheese like goat or Swiss.

Make: Cocktails

Leftover jams, jellies and preserves are a delicious, no-hassle option for sweetening cocktails. They’re basically very similar in ingredients to the flavored simple syrups mixologists use to whip up drinks at fancy bars across the country. Add a tablespoon or two of your jelly to a shaker, pour in your booze of choice (vodka, tequila, gin, rum or whiskey), plus a squeeze of lemon, lime, orange or grapefruit juice for balance, and ice; shake and strain into a glass over more ice. Apricot, strawberry, raspberry and grape are all nice choices, but even savory options like onion jam will work if you’re more adventurous.